Over the years, horticulturalists and landscape architects have made serious efforts to plant banks with vegetative material. The purpose of such planting is two-fold. From the environmental stand-point, an unplanted bank may be subject to severe erosion by water run off. Secondly, an unplanted bank can be unsightly. These two problems are particularly evident in highway construction and new home construction where excavation has exposed unsightly subsoil.
The exposure of such subsoil creates its own problem in that it is difficult if not impossible to grow a heavily rooted ground cover in such material due principally to a lack of soil nutrients and the like.
While not as serious from the infertile soil stand point, the decorative planting of a hillside can also prove difficult when the slope of the hill is significant. Generally a naturally formed hill with native vegetation is not as subject to erosion as man made hills and man made excavations, however, when a landscape designer disturbs natural vegetation on a hill, generally the holding capability of the natural vegetation is lost and erosion is the natural result.
While erosion and soil deficiencies may accompany attempts to plant on a slope, a serious problem arises when the vegetation itself is washed down the hill either by natural water accumulation or by irrigation to keep the plant alive.
Finally, it is always difficult to ensure that vegetation planted on a slope receives an adequate water supply. Without some sort of retention built around the plant, the result usually is water flowing down the hill rather than seeping into the ground around the plant's roots to properly supply the plant with water.
In order to solve, or at least address some of the problems set forth above, it has been common practice to form terraces on a bank with the vegetation being planted in the flattened portion of the terrace. Such efforts, while successful in the agricultural environment generally are usually not used in less extensive projects, simply because of the cost in earth moving.
On a lesser scale retaining walls have been used consisting of rather large scale concrete or stone walls to smaller styles such as rail road ties and the like. The latter being utilized quite frequently in home-type landscaping.
While the aforesaid methods and devices have been utilized in more permanent installations where costs are not necessarily a controlling factor, they all result in restructuring of the bank's slope. When it is desirable to retain the natural or manmade slope of the bank, terraces or retaining walls are not appropriate. In these situations it has been common to construct some sort of a temporary planting hole or the like. In the simplest method a hole is dug directly into the bank with the plant planted directly in the hole. In these instances, it is not uncommon for the bank and the plant to wash away due to the necessary watering of the plant.
In order to avoid erosion landscape architects and landscape designers have utilized a board, a piece of a flower pot, or any other relatively permanent piece of material to retain the bank adjacent the plant for at least a time sufficient to establish the plant on the bank. There are several objections to such temporary structures. First, they are generally unsightly in that they are not designed for the purpose they are being put to. Secondly, in the case of wood or metal, the structure usually deteriorates in a relatively short period of time thereby becoming useless at a time when its retentive properties may be very important.
Accordingly it is an object of this invention to provide a soil retention means for use on a sloped surface in conjunction with planting agricultural material.
It is a further object of this invention to provide such soil retention means that is aesthetically pleasing.
It is still a further object of this invention to provide a relatively inexpensive soil retention means having a relatively long life span.
Finally, it is an object of this invention to provide a method for using such a soil retention means.